


The Road Leads Back To You

by orphan_account



Series: Summer [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Established Relationship, First Time, Fluff, Fourth of July, Jewish Jack, M/M, Mentions of homophobia, Summer after the kiss, Summer in Georgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 18:26:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9837953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Bitty can feel the weight of something between them and lord he’s a little terrified because Jack Zimmermann is a hundred and ten percent in everything. His motto is be better, and Bitty thought once that was just hockey, but he’s coming to realise it’s everything. Even being Eric Bittle’s boyfriend.Jack goes to Georgia trope.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I just realised I've never done a Jack visits Bitty for the fourth of July in Georgia so here's my take on it. I might do a follow up of Bitty visiting Jack in Providence when I have the time.
> 
> Warnings for mentions of homophobia and casual racism and anti-semitism as related to living in the South. Nothing graphic, mainly Bitty's stream of consciousness and reflections on his family.

Bitty thinks about it every time he closes his eyes. Even when he’s blinking. The moment his lashes touch his cheek, Jack’s there. The ghost of Jack’s hands on his face, the ghost of Jack’s lips on his lips. It hadn’t been Bitty’s first kiss, but it was the only kiss he wanted to remember—even if he never gets another. He can smell Jack’s cologne, his shampoo, feel the roughness of his fingertips as they graze the cut of his jaw.

Bitty goes to bed every night with Jack on his mind, and wakes in the same condition.

The summer creeps by, and they skype, and they text. Bitty is never allowed to forget Jack. Bitty’s never allowed to doubt Jack’s intentions.

**I can’t wait to see you. July seems so far away.**

**I think about you all the time.**

**I can’t wait for you to see my new kitchen. You can name my oven if you like.**

Innocuous and yet so perfect and so _Jack_ that it makes Bitty ache.

He holds it inside, because he still can’t tell anyone about it. He has to sit and listen to his parents disparage of, ‘that kind of lifestyle,’ with their friends at Sunday supper after church and although he thinks his parents don’t necessarily agree with the sentiment, he knows that southern bigotry runs deep and fierce through their veins.

It’s why he can’t say anything. It’s why his mother, his best friend in the whole world, remains ignorant of one of the most important things Bitty has ever done in his entire life.

“Dicky?”

Bitty blinks up, and stares at his parents, then at Rosie and George—aunt and uncle by default of having known Coach and Suzanne for as long as Eric can remember—who are staring at his expectantly. “Sorry, I was driftin’ off.”

Suzanne smiles quietly. “I was just asking if you’re excited to have your friend come down.”

“Oh. Yes, mama,” he replies automatically. “It’s hard bein’ away from the boys all summer.”

Coach laughs. “College changes a man, son. You’ll be making memories you’ll never forget.” He goes on to laugh with George about whatever it was they got up to with their own football team, and Bitty almost, _almost_ finds it in himself to agree with coach.

Except he can’t. Not really.

“…just excited that Dicky here’s making some proper friends. Not that he didn’t have any back in high school, but it’s nice to see him doing something a little more…” Coach stops himself because he’s been scolded enough times by Suzanne for implying things about Eric that are more than just him being a “sensitive boy”. The hardest part was, Coach had been right all along. Eric Bittle was more than just a sensitive boy.

He was a pie-baking, figure-skating, Beyonce-loving, fast as hell forward. And he was gay. He always had been, and that wasn’t going to change. But he understood why his parents didn’t want to see that about him. He understood it was more than his own salvation they were worried about. He knew what happened to parents whose sons and daughters went off to go live more liberal lifestyles, and there was a small, self-hating bit of his own soul that would sacrifice his own happiness to make sure his parents could live their lives in comfortable ignorance.

But the piece was small enough it could be eclipsed by just how much he wanted Jack. Just how much he was willing to cling on to the hope that whatever was going to happen, Eric Bittle the Georgia boy, and Jack Zimmermann the NHL playing hockey god would end up with their own happy ending.

And Jack would be there tomorrow morning, bright and early. Bitty was taking his dad’s truck, and meeting Jack at the airport. Bitty would get to touch him again. And maybe, somewhere in the shadows of Madison, Georgia’s town, he’d also get to kiss him.

“Do you think he’ll be annoyed not to be able to have his own room?” Suzanne frets for the fifth time.

“Mama, Jack just finished up livin’ in a hockey frat haus. He ain’t gonna care if he’s sleeping on a camp bed for a coupl’a nights,” Bitty says, pushing what’s left of his runner beans into his mashed potatoes.

Suzanne tuts about him playing with his food, so he gets up to warm the pie and collect the dishes, and let the adults have their own conversation.

He was one too, now, though. He had to remind himself of that. He was a grown man—or nearly—twenty years old and two more years of college in front of him, and had a rich, handsome, sweeter’n moomaw’s strawberry shortcake boyfriend.

*** 

The airport is lousy with tourists flying in for the Fourth of July celebration. Bitty has to wonder if there’s some sort of irony to his reuniting with Jack finally on this holiday. But Jack is part American, Bitty thinks—though he’s never asked. He knows Alicia is…something. Not Canadian. And then he starts to worry himself sick when he realises that he doesn’t know enough about Jack. He knows the little things. He knows the way Jack likes his eggs, and how he likes them arranged on his breakfast plate. He knows Jack is sensitive to textures, and that pies with crumbles are great, but pumpkin is right out and always will be.

He knows Jack wears his socks inside out because the toe threads bother him, and that he cuts all the tags off his shirts. He knows Jack dog-ears his history novels—and the ones that he reads more than once are nothing more than dented pages. He knows Jack only uses shampoo with tea-tree, and that his showers last almost exactly three minutes and fifteen seconds.

He knows these things, but will they matter in the end?

Bitty takes a breath and parks the car. He slips the parking ticket into his pocket, then heads for the front doors and the place he arranged to meet Jack. The flight from Providence has landed already, but Bitty knows there’s the matter of baggage claim and navigating through the terminals which will take time.

He thinks it’ll give him a moment to gather himself, but all it really does is give him extra time to work himself up. What if it was just…spur of the moment. What if Jack takes one look at him and thinks, ‘I’ve made a huge mistake?’ What if Jack forgot what Bitty looked like in person and when he sees him he…

“Bittle.”

Bitty starts, and turns, eyes wide as they lock onto the taller man pushing through a couple trying to corral their six kids. Jack is bumped by them, and apologises like the Canadian he is. Bitty’s breath is caught in his throat because Jack looks more beautiful than any human being has a right to look. He’s wearing a Falconers snapback pulled low over his brow. He’s in shorts to combat the heat, and his old Samwell t-shirt that makes Bitty want to cry. He’s in sandals, and he’s got a bag slung over his shoulder.

But mostly he’s just staring, his big, droopy, sad blue eyes fixed on Bitty like Bitty is his entire world and that’s what does him in. Bitty thinks maybe his heart stops, but he manages to find enough courage to tentatively put his arms round Jack’s shoulders and draw him in for a hug.

“I want to kiss you,” Jack murmurs by way of greeting.

Bitty’s cheeks instantly flare red and white-hot. “That’s certainly a greeting, Mr Zimmermann.”

Jack’s all smiles—a good look on him, one that got more familiar during his last year there at Samwell. And god, Bitty’s missed that.

“Come on, I got a nice spot in the parking garage so it won’t be hotter’n hell in the truck.”

He thinks Jack’s going to chirp him for his accent which he knows is a hundred times thicker when he’s home, but he just gets a soft chuckle, and the brush of Jack’s elbow against his own as they walk a little too close.

Jack doesn’t say anything else, which is probably a good thing. Bitty feels like he’s about to vibrate out of his own skin, and his lips are tingling with the prospect of putting them on Jack’s again for the first time in months. His mouth has gone dry and he’s so fixated he nearly forgets where he’s parked.

They find it, though, and Bitty unlocks the doors with the push of a button, and they climb in. He wastes no time starting the truck up, the AC blasting to combat the thick, heavy heat settled round them.

There’s a silence, like an ocean between them. Then Jack reaches out. He brushes the backs of his curled knuckles along the cut of Bitty’s jaw and whispers, “Hey.”

It’s all Bitty needs. The windows are fairly tinted, and there’s no one around besides. So he leans in and curls one hand into the front of Jack’s shirt and tugs. Their lips meet in the middle, and the soft, relieved sigh Jack lets out when they finally make contact is _everything_.

And Lord, it’s better than Bitty remembered. It’s better than he imagined. Jack is soft and pliant, and needy as he drags Bitty as close as he can get him. “Sorry, I couldn’t wait,” he murmurs.

Bitty laughs. “I swear if you didn’t do that I was gonna jump clear outta my body, sweetheart. Lord how I missed you.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack murmurs. He drags his fingers into Bitty’s hair. They don’t linger, because it isn’t safe there, but they draw it out as long as they dare.

“Sorry for what?” Bitty asks, his lips now kiss-swollen—still tingling, but for different reasons than before.

Jack sighs and shrugs, and doesn’t say anything until Bitty pulls out of the parking spot, hands the ticket over, and pays the two dollar fee. They pull out into the Georgia sun which isn’t so bad from the protection of the truck, and he heads toward Madison.

“I didn’t realise,” Jack says, then stops, and breathes. “I might have realised I liked you before graduation if I let myself. But I just didn’t…consider it.”

Jack’s accent is thicker, too. From spending most of his summer between training camp and everything, with his parents. Bitty loves it. “Honey, it’s okay,” he says as he hits the freeway. “I understand.”

Jack leans back against the seat, lets his arm drape across so his fingertips can play with the freshly shorn hair behind Bitty’s ears. It’s nice. It’s…it’s a lot, and Bitty wants to pull the car over and drape himself over Jack’s lap and just let himself be loved on for a bit. But there’s no time, so he keeps driving.

“Do we have a lot of plans tonight?” Jack asks.

Bitty shakes his head. “Cook-out, but we can skip it if you’re feelin’ jet-lagged. Mama and Coach always go, but I don’t think they expect me to do everything when I have a friend over.”

“Friend,” Jack muses with a tiny grin.

Bitty rolls his eyes. “Good friend. Very good friend, whom I have missed terribly.”

Jack’s smirk turns into a smile and he cups the back of Bitty’s neck for a second. “I know we can’t…I know this is just…” Bitty knows Jack has trouble expressing himself with words sometimes, so he just nods to let Jack know he gets what he’s trying to say. “I’m happy to be here.”

“Me too,” Bitty breathes. “Lord, me too.”

*** 

They don’t get more time than that. At home it’s a flurry of Jack being introduced around, quick-fire questions from Coach, selfies with mama, Bitty having instructions dictated to him about the upcoming fourth barbeque. Jack barely has time to throw his bag into Bitty’s room before they’re whisked off, and Bitty’s locked in the kitchen with his mother as Jack helps coach outside get everything set up.

Bitty can see them through the window as he’s cutting butter into what will eventually be his favourite pie crust. Jack’s sweating, but smiling. He seems oddly at home, even in the heat, and Bitty can’t deny he certainly doesn’t mind watching Jack’s biceps flex as he and coach set up an inflatable water-slide they managed to find from a rental place online because most of Bitty’s little cousins will be over, and it’ll keep them both cool and occupied.

Bitty half hopes Jack packed swimming shorts, and he half hopes Jack didn’t because he’s not sure he can take it.

“I’m real glad you and Jack stayed friends, Dicky.”

Bitty blinked up, then grins at his mama and feels an ache in his chest that he can’t just tell her how close he and Jack really are. How he can’t wait until his parents are in bed, until they can turn lights off and curl up in each other’s arms and attempt to make up for lost time. Bitty tries not to feel bitter about the months—no the years—he might have had with Jack in the haus if either of them had been brave enough.

Jack blames himself, Bitty knows, but Bitty also knows that he shoulders the responsibility of not being brave enough to say anything, to dare himself to look a little closer. Because it wasn’t obvious but also…it sort of was.

“He’s a real good guy, mama. I’m lucky.”

Suzanne laughs and says, “I think you both are. I think you both have a lot to teach each other.”

As much as it breaks Bitty’s heart, he knows she doesn’t mean that more ways than one. Bitty’s life has a lot of surprises, but he won’t find himself on the end of the spectrum where his parents hug him and tell him they always knew and they love him anyway.

With Coach Eric Bittle, and his wife Suzanne—loving parents of one Eric Richard Bittle Jr—there will be tears, disbelief, several questions of, “Oh Dicky, are you sure?” At some point they might assure him they still love him, but will need time to come to terms with it.

If Bitty keeps this secret, there may be more summers like this.

But if he doesn’t, he can be assured this will likely be the last. His parents might visit him and Jack, but there will be no place for gay little Eric Bittle and his boyfriend—even if said boyfriend is a rich, strapping, famous NHL star. Bitty knows what the south did to Michael Sam, and they love football here. Hockey is nothing to these people—they’d rip him apart, and Eric too.

And it’s just…a lot.

He swallows against the lump in this throat and finishes the pie crust, then excuses himself outside to help the boys.

His mama smiles as he does, and he pretends it’s not because she likes seeing him a little more manly. He pretends it doesn’t hurt.

*** 

The only reprieve is that night. Jack’s nervous, but slides into Bitty’s bed when Bitty begs for it, and whispers against his ear, “The door’s locked, sweetheart. I promise.”

Jack lets out a low hum, and he touches Bitty reverently, like Bitty’s something precious—not quite fragile, but worth treating with care. Bitty hasn’t felt like this ever. No one had been brave enough in high school. He suspects in a few years, he’ll get a facebook friend request or two from some of the guys who moved away to come out. That’s just statistics, and it’s logical they’d go looking for the queer kid they shoved into a locker for being gay but…

For now, he’s very alone, and he’s remained so. The dates Rans and Holtzy had set up for him hadn’t worked out. He’d walked away with a handful of slobbery kisses, and ruined shoes. His greatest experience was spending Spring C carried on Jack piggy-back so this…this moment of warm lips against his pulse point, and giant hands—god they were so huge—cupping his ass like a fucking trophy—it’s a lot.

It’s a moment Bitty had wondered in the quiet of his room if he’d ever get.

And now he had it. With someone he never thought would look at him with want and desire.

“I’ve been thinking about this every night,” Jack murmurs. He’s speaking between kisses, like he can’t take his lips away for longer than a breath, so it takes him forever to get the words out.

Bitty doesn’t care. God he doesn’t care. He just wants and wants and wants. His fingers clutch at Jack’s t-shirt, now that he’s allowed. He’s seen, through grainy computer filters and selfies. He’d never been able to look in person before, let alone touch, but the wide expanse of Jack’s sharply defined abs are his and he just can’t seem to get enough.

He manages to wriggle down far enough to kiss at them. Jack’s fingers go into his hair, and Bitty panics for a second, thinking Jack’s pushing him for more than he’s ready to give because Bitty wants a lot, but he’s not…he isn’t ready for all _that_ yet. But they don’t.

Jack is Jack, and really he just likes to touch. He runs his fingers through Bitty’s cowlicks, down the buzzed sides, across the back of his neck like he’s soaking in the feel of him. But that’s it. He lets Bitty taste and explore on his own without asking for what Bitty can’t give yet.

Bitty eventually slides back up and kisses Jack. It’s all very overwhelming and at one point Bitty’s sure a stiff breeze is going to make him come.

But they start to wind down and eventually Bitty has enough conscious thought to look at Jack’s face and he sees desire—yes—but he also sees fatigue. It had been such a long day, and Bitty’s okay with just curling up in Jack’s arms.

So he does.

“We have time,” he murmurs.

Jack nibbles at Bitty’s shoulder for a while, but his breathing starts to even. His lips still, pressed against Bitty’s freckled back, and his arms stay around Bitty’s waist, but he sleeps. Bitty stares out the window, through the crack in the curtains. He sees a sliver of moon, and a couple of stars, and he smiles.

He sends a quiet prayer of thanks out into the Universe. He has no idea what the future holds, but for now, he’s got this.

*** 

They don’t get physical again until the fifth. Until the cousins are gone, and they’re not as tired as they could be. They were able to watch the fireworks in the back of Coach’s pick up. They were alone enough to cuddle, for Jack to hitch Bitty up close and kiss him more.

They take a couple of selfies to keep for themselves, and Bitty can tweet about how happy he is.

They don’t talk about the future, or what it’ll be like in Providence. They don’t talk about going faster or slower.

They just exist together in the humid air, trading slow kisses with languid tongues.

At that point Bitty knows he’s ready for a little more, but he decides to give it more time.

*** 

On the fifth, Suzanne suggests the lake. They have a small paddleboat coach invested in several years back but never uses. Bitty hesitates, but it’s been a while and he knows a few spots on the lake that won’t be overrun with visitors.

They hitch it to the truck, and Jack surprises Bitty with his ability to get the boat into the water without a problem.

“I’m Canadian,” Jack says, like that answers Bitty’s unspoken questions. Bitty doesn’t think Canada equals boat knowledge, but whatever. He thinks maybe it’s a Canadian _Hockey_ thing. Either way it’s one more mystery to unravel, and right now he doesn’t care.

They paddle round the lake and Jack chirps him when he starts to burn, even with the shaded top. But they find a small cove and Bitty puts up the privacy screens, then straddles Jack and lets his boyfriend jerk him of.

Bitty returns the favour once he’s got his head about him again, and before they clean up he spends a full minute staring at his fluid, and Jack’s, caught in Jack’s trail of hair on his stomach. He can’t tell which is which and frankly that thought alone makes him feel weirdly secure.

“I like you a whole lot,” Bitty murmurs.

Jack cups his face and kisses him, then tips him over the side of the boat.

Bitty yells and Jack laughs, then jumps in after him.

They swim to clean up, then eat lunch, then paddle back to the shore. In the truck, Bitty goes behind the building of an abandoned hardware store, and they kiss until he can’t breathe.

“Lord, I’m gonna miss you so much,” he confesses.

“Come back early,” Jack says. He’s got Bitty’s face between his hands the way he had done back in his old room at the haus. His thumbs brush along Bitty’s cheekbones softly. “Come back early. Stay with me in Providence. Tell your parents…I…I don’t know what. The team needs you.”

“Mr Zimmermann, are you asking me—a good, decent, southern boy—to lie to his mama and daddy so he can do untoward things with his boyfriend?”

“I have two weeks off before I start training,” Jack says, then brings one hand down to cup at Bitty’s growing hardness. “That’s exactly what I’m asking.”

Bitty can’t help but grin, and kiss him, and agree.

*** 

“You go to church Sundays?” Suzanne asks at dinner that night. Jack’s flight is first thing Monday morning, and Bitty’s a little edgy about it. He knew Sunday was coming up—the church mention. He actually had no idea about Jack’s religion. It was mostly an unspoken thing in the haus.

Jack clears his throat, then takes a sip of his sweet tea. “I’m Jewish, actually, but thanks to hockey I don’t really get to keep the Shabbat much. My dad struggled with it. He was more practising than my mother.”

There’s a still silence at the table. Bitty had spent years hearing things about Jewish people. “They’re God’s people,” his granny would tell him. “God’s chosen, but they rejected Jesus and you’re not gonna make it into heaven if you reject Jesus.”

He’s got no idea how his parents feel about that. It wasn’t exactly a topic discussed at home.

There was a lot of unlearning Bitty had to do, frankly, the moment he got to Samwell. About his own sexuality—because every time he wanted to kiss a boy he couldn’t help thinking about lessons on sin pounded into him at Sunday school.

He had to unlearn a lot when it came to diversity, because his school was plenty racially diverse, but he heard what the white kids had to say about all that. Spouting off the garbage their parents told them. Bitty didn’t hear it at his own dinner table. He couldn’t assume his parents weren’t racist, but his daddy was a football coach and if he had something to think about it well—he’d always kept it to himself.

But he’d listened to both Ransom and Nursey talk enough about what it was like that he understood how fucked up it was in his own head.

It felt like a never-ending battle.

Now he watched his parents like a hawk because it was terrifying enough knowing he would eventually have to deal with coming out—but if they had something more against Jack than him being Bitty’s boyfriend well…

“Oh.” Suzanne clears her throat. “I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t realise. Dicky never said.”

“I didn’t think it was relevant,” Bitty argues, not wanting to admit he hadn’t exactly known. He flushes, and stares down at his plate.

“Of course not. Does that mean you’re skippin’ church tomorrow, honey?”

“If y’all don’t mind,” Bitty mumbles.

He feels Jack touch his knee under the table with his own knee, and he glances up in time for Jack to say, “I’ve been to euh…church before. If you don’t want to skip it…”

“M’thinkin’ Jesus’ll forgive me for having a lie-in just this once,” Bitty says, and gives a sort of defiant look at both his parents who quickly relent.

He’ll get an earful later, of course. He knows this much. But his parents are far more concerned with how they look in front of Bad Bob Zimmermann’s rich, famous son than pushing the issue of Bitty skipping one Sunday.

So it’s let go, and they finish up with some pie, and then coach and Suzanne decide it’s time for bed.

Jack asks to go outside, because he wants to see the fireflies and apparently Shitty told him they’re twice as big in Georgia.

They’re not, it turns out. Jack catches one, cupping it in his hands, and lifts it between their faces. It’s not bright enough to do more than faintly glow against the lines of his palm, but Bitty thinks it might possibly be the most romantic fucking thing he’s ever experienced in his life.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes once Jack releases it. “For uh. My parents. For not telling them you’re like…Jewish.”

Jack smiles. Bitty can see the upturn of his lips in the moonlight. He doesn’t say much, just drags Bitty behind his mama’s favourite peach tree, and they hunker down with their backs to the trunk, facing away from the house. It’s dark enough that his parents wouldn’t be able to see him anyway, but he still feels lit up with nerves.

“Did you know?” Jack asks.

Bitty shakes his head. “I feel like there’s so much I missed, didn’t pay attention to. I’m…I feel real bad, Jack. Like a bad boyfriend.”

Jack chuckles, and Bitty starts when he feels a warm hand on his face as Jack leans in and whispers, “Boyfriend. Bittle…Bits, do you know how much I love hearing that?”

Bitty swears his tongue has somehow escaped his mouth because all he can do is make a tiny noise and shake his head right against Jack’s palm.

“A lot.” There’s a pause, and Bitty can feel the weight of _something_ between them and lord he’s a little terrified because Jack Zimmermann is a hundred and ten percent in everything. His motto is be better and Bitty thought once that was just hockey but he’s coming to realise it’s everything. Even being Eric Bittle’s boyfriend. “A lot,” he repeats again, then brings his head in so low his lips brush Bitty’s earlobe. “Almost as much as I think…almost as much as I know I love you.”

Bitty sucks in a breath, and can’t really respond because what are words, what the fuck. So he just kisses Jack, kisses him, kisses him, _kisses_ him until he has to pull away. He’s got his hands tangled in Jack’s hair, though he can’t remember how they got there. He looks over to see a firefly land on Jack’s shoe and for whatever reason, it makes him laugh.

And then Jack chuckles softly and Bitty’s heart has left his body, taking permanent resident between his own sleeve and Jack’s hands. Vulnerable. Open. Easily crushed, but yet he feels safer than he ever has.

“Yeah I think I love you too,” he manages.

Jack smiles against his lips as he kisses him again. “Think?”

Bitty just laughs again, and lets Jack hold him until they’re too tired to keep their eyes open.

That night they sleep in separate beds. It’s too hot to cuddle, but Bitty’s arm drapes over the side of the bed, and Jack’s fingers tangle with his.

Bitty wakes up that way.

*** 

Monday morning Bitty’s absolutely not crying, but he’s too much of a mess to walk Jack in. They arrive at the airport a half hour sooner than they need to, and Bitty finds a secluded parking spot in the underground garage. It’s dark and smells of car exhaust and it’s ugly and cold, but he can be held by Jack’s arms and he can kiss him as much as he wants.

“Come spend two weeks with me,” he begs.

Bitty doesn’t know what he’s going to tell his parents, but he does know he’s going to tell Jack yes. So he does. “Pick me up at the airport?” Bitty asks.

“Yes,” Jack whispers, and his kiss is a little harder this time, like maybe he’d been afraid Bitty was going to say no. Maybe he’s just as nervous as Bitty. Maybe…just maybe, Jack’s heart is in Bitty’s hands as much as Jack’s got his. “I’ll be there. And when you get to the apartment…we won’t have to hide. I can hold you and kiss you. I don’t have to let you go.”

“No. Sweetheart no. Never let me go, please,” Bitty says. There is a double meaning for _that_ and Jack hears it, and presses the flat of his palm to Bitty’s chest where his heart is beating wildly.

“I won’t,” Jack says. “Let me book your flight.”

Bitty wants to argue, but maybe he can play this off like Jack wants to repay the favour. He’ll drop Bad Bob’s name or something, and he knows his mama will cave. He’ll go to church every Sunday he’s got left if it means he can have this—if he can have this mouth and these hands unrestrained and uncensored.

He’s never wanted anything more.

“I love you, Jack.” He says it, and doesn’t miss the way Jack lights up, like maybe he’s never heard it before—or maybe not with the sincerity Bitty says it. So he repeats himself so Jack can carry that home with him. “I love you, sweetheart. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Jack murmurs. He kisses him until the very last second, until he absolutely has to grab his things from the back seat and leave.

Bitty watches him, and when he’s gone he sends a series of emojis, and just gets a **haha** in return. Then a little heart, and Bitty feels himself soar.


End file.
